Sunday, April 24, 2011

Blu Ray Review - "Skyline"

In Los Angeles for his best friend's (Donald Faison) birthday party, Jarrod (Eric Balfour) and his girlfriend Elaine (Scottie Thompson) awaken to a whole new world. Aliens have come to earth, dropping floating beams of electric blue lights that draws humans in like a moth to flame. They watch as people in the streets are literally sucked up into the light and disappear inside the various alien craft that now litter the skies of Los Angeles. Foiled in their attempts to escape (and losing members of their group along the way), the friends hole up inside a luxury condo and watch as the world they knew comes crashing down.

If that summary made "Skyline" sound even remotely appealing, please accept my profuse apology and give serious attention to the following paragraph.

I see a lot of movies, dear readers. Way more than the average person. And my love for science fiction has been well documented. I've willingly rewatched "Starship Troopers" and recently at that. So take that into consideration when I say "Skyline" is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Under no circumstances should ANYONE see this movie and I feel like the cast of this atrocity would probably agree with me. When trying to decide whether a bad movie is simply that or if it belongs in the "worst I've ever seen" category, I look for only one thing: were there ten good/enjoyable minutes somewhere in said movie's runtime? Just ten short minutes that didn't make me want to scratch my own eyeballs out. The answer here is a resounding "no". Every single aspect of "Skyline" is abysmal.

Let's start with the casting. What is Donald Faison doing in this movie?! His scenes (which are SPOILER ALERT mercifully cut short) play out as if he thought he was working on a sci-fi spoof and no one on set had the heart to tell him otherwise. I'm a Faison fan but gracious, his screen time is almost unbearable. The other actors, while more fitting of their characters, do not, for one scene, give you the feeling that any of them have acted before. Ever. ANYWHERE. Like Faison, I actually quite like Balfour and think he's got something to offer as a supporting actor. But I would hope he doesn't even put this on his resume. He appears lost and unconvincing, though I guess I can't really blame him (or anyone else) given the source material they had to work with. Directing partners the Brothers Strauss continually put their characters in dumb, cliche, and even at times boring situations that do little to impress. The dialogue is oppressive, the character interactions are meaningless, and the special effects are clunky and super CGI-y.

Then we come to the aliens that, for lack of a better term, suck. Their major weapon is bascially a human-sized bug zapper. Weaksauce. There's no backstory as to why they're here, setting the stage for what I can only guess was supposed to be a shocking reveal that (SPOILER ALERT) they're only here to harvest our brains. I think. Honestly, I'm not even sure that's the point, that was just what I could glean in between sticking forks in my eyes and ears. I completely checked out when our hero, full of adrenaline, punches an alien to death. Mind you, this scene came after we witnessed aliens not only surviving but thriving while being hacked with an axe, rammed with a Cadillac Escalade, and thumped with a NUCLEAR BOMB. So, yeah, of course they would be susceptible to fisticuffs. It absolutely shocks me that trustworthy critics went so fervently after "Battle: Los Angeles" and for all intents and purposes, left this train wreck alone by just calling it a bad movie. It's not a bad movie. It's a TERRIBLE movie! I would rather watch "The Last Airbender" again over sitting through another viewing of this heap of garbage, which is without question the worst movie I've seen from 2010. I implore all of you to stay away from "Skyline."